Isaac's home birth story

I had hoped to give birth to Isaac at the local birth centre where Jude was born. My experience there with Jude was just beautiful and I was genuinely looking forward to birthing there again. Sadly, when I was 34 weeks pregnant, a temporary closure of the birth centre was announced, which meant that I had to come up with a new plan. Giving birth at home made sense for a lot of reasons for me, so that became my new plan. I felt like labour might start at any moment from when I was 38 weeks pregnant, but Isaac had other ideas. I didn't mind the waiting, and was grateful for supportive midwives who said I had no reason to be induced if I didn't want to be. I started going for evening walks from 38 weeks and those evenings are etched firmly in my memory. I would walk around the perimeter of the park by our house, watching the last of the Autumn leaves clinging on to their branches, and taking in how the moon waxed and waned in those last three weeks of waiting for Isaac's arrival.

Monday 26th November 2018: 40 + 9:
After lots of gloomy weather, the day started beautifully. I resolved to go for a walk this morning and soak up the sunshine and the last fading beauty of Autumn.
As has been the case with each of my pregnancies, in these final days, I am happy to be alone and crave the quiet. I decided to walk along the cycle path, which was utterly beautiful in the sunshine, knowing that I would find peace along here. Before I was pregnant, this was a regular running route for me, and I have missed the quiet beauty it offers me. I started having a few minor cramps on the walk. Not significant enough to call contractions, but enough of a change in how I was feeling for me to start getting excited that today might just be the day. Once I was home, I cooked two different soups - Moroccan chicken and butternut squash and pepper. The mild cramps continued. I texted John at 12pm just before having some butternut squash soup for lunch, to let him know things might be happening. Sara, Gerald and Jude left the house at 12.30 to catch the bus and collect Ruby from school at 1.30. I was grateful to have the house to myself, knowing that this would be needed for labour to truly begin. I started timing contractions at 1.20pm and decided to go for a walk around Page Park at 1.30pm to see if that helped things progress.

I found myself noticing the little details like how the back of a fallen leaf looked like silk, and how the tiny dog I saw had incredibly white fur. I smiled back at a Mum pushing a baby while having another contraction, that knowing smile of a woman who has recently been through pregnancy and knows what the slow waddle feels like. I bumped into our neighbour and had three contractions in the fifteen minutes I was talking to her. They were still at the stage of being able to stay calm and talk but needed to rub my back to help with the discomfort and increasingly felt the need to draw our conversation to a close and get home. It was a wonderful secret to be carrying, knowing that Isaac was starting to make his way into the world, and only I knew about it while the contractions were gentle enough for me to be able to hold a conversation without giving away that soon I would be birthing a baby.

Once I had wrapped up the conversation with my neighbour, I went home and called my good friend who was willing to open her home to Ruby, Jude and my in laws at anytime of day or night, should we need her help. I made arrangements with my mother in law to collect the children's pyjamas and toothbrushes, and set about gathering the things they needed. At 2.10pm I texted John again, feeling like I would really like him home with me. Although I was still coping ok with the contractions, I was at a point where I knew I would value his presence and support.

I rang the midwife at 2.35pm to let them know that I was confident labour was underway, and the midwife on shift for home births that day rang me back at 2.45pm to let me know she was nearby, so would make her way over to see how I was doing. John sent me a text at 2.55pm to say he was leaving, which meant another half an hour before he was home. Lizzie the midwife arrived fifteen minutes later, and I was so grateful for her arrival, to no longer have to be on my own. We chatted about how things had been going so far and she observed me through a few contractions, which was enough time for her to decide that she wouldn't leave me and come back later, as she felt the strength of my contractions and the position of the baby were such that things might progress fairly quickly. John arrived home at 3.30pm and soon after, got to work with pumping up the birthing pool and filling it. At this point, I was managing the contractions by leaning on the birthing ball while standing against the wall, swaying from side to side. I remember being grateful for the coolness of the ball during each contraction as my temperature rose.

My thoughts during this labour were very lucid. With each contraction, I found myself reflecting on how different labour felt third time around. Not so much in the physical sense, more from the point of view that my first labour was filled with excitement and anticipation around the new expeirence of birthing a baby. It was such a precious time of shared excitement with our NCT group, all due to give birth in November 2013. In the five years since then, so many women in my life have journeyed through the pain and heartache of miscarriage, often well past the first trimester. Experiencing the fragility of life in the context of motherhood, alongside the intense challenges of functioning with sleep deprivation and unhappy babies has brought with it a different perspective of motherhood. With each contraction, I found myself thinking about the women in my life and the incredible energy - both physical and emotional - that goes into birthing these precious babies. While giving birth is truly the hardest physical work my body has ever done, I felt such gratitude that I had the privilege of bringing new life into the world.

Soon after the midwife had established that I was 3-4cm dilated, I started craving the relief and comfort of being in water, and asked how soon I could get into the birthing pool. I kept thinking back to my labour with Jude and how I had managed to go far longer before getting into water with him. I really didn't want to misjudge how far along I was and risk slowing labour down by getting into the water, but the contractions were really ramping up in intensity. Lizzie felt confident that things wouldn't slow down by getting in the pool, so I climbed in, grateful for the beautiful relief of warmth and assumed the same positon I had for both Ruby and Jude's labours, head and arms resting on the side of the pool, appreciating the calm moments between each contraction. I remember glancing at the kitchen clock which said it was 5pm and thinking how I hadn't been labouring for long at all, but I wasn't sure how many hours of the intensity I could bear. I asked for some gas and air, and John questioned whether I really wanted to start using the gas and air at this stage. He knew that I wanted to hold out as long as possible without it, because the entinox takes me into such a different head space. The entinox was just what I needed. With both Jude and Isaac's labours, I have listened to Ludovico Einaudi's beautiful piano music, and the best way I can find to describe how the entinox changes the way I cope in labour is this: the intensity of contractions isn't diminished, but it distances me from the intensity. When it feels like the contractions are completely taking over my body, the entinox gives me a feeling of being in control and I quite literally conducted my way through the contractions, in time with the music.

5.15pm: The second midwife arrived to assist with delivery, and to my delight, it was one of the midwives who had assisted with Jude's delivery at the birth centre where he was born. (For those of you who don't live in the UK, the way the NHS works means that you have no idea who your midwife will be until labour begins, so the chances of getting a midwife who you've had previously are fairly slim.) Very soon after this, I felt my waters break in the birthing pool. At the next heartrate check, the midwives told me I needed to get out of the pool because they couldn't find Isaac's heartbeat. I remember not being too concerned because I knew that this was fairly common when waters break, due to the baby decending into a different position. Once I was out of the water, they called for an ambulance, saying that Isaac was bradycardic (sustained low fetal heartrate). The urge to push followed almost immediately after my membranes had ruptured. Lizzie asked me if I was getting the urge to push, and I told her I was already pushing. This stage felt so similar to Jude's labour, when my overarching thought is one of, 'this is the hardest work I have ever done'. None of my babies have delivered easily, and Isaac was no exception. The midwives asked me to change positions so that they could gauge what was happening more easily and I remember thinking again, just as with Ruby and Jude, 'I'm in the best position for birthing, why can't I get them out?!?'

By this point, the paramedics had arrived, but Isaac's heartrate had returned to normal, so the midwives asked them to just wait in our hallway. I have so much gratitude for midwives and all that they do, and this was yet another reason for my gratitude. The way they respected my space and knew that to have more people in the room than was necessary wouldn't be helpful. Once Isaac's head was born, I heard the worrying words, 'shoulder dystocia' (when a baby's shoulders get stuck behind the pelvis). This is an obstetric emergency, and only occurs in 1% of births. The midwives were phenomenal at staying calm, and giving clear instructions to me. It brings tears to my eyes even now, thinking about how calmly they dealt with the situation. It took them seven minutes to release Isaac's arm, which then allowed me to deliver the rest of his body. The first sounds that came out of Isaac as they carried him to the changing mat to give him oxygen were so gurgly and helpless. I remember opening my eyes for the first time after he was born and thinking how different our house looked from the start of my labour, when everything had been tidy and calm with just the birthing pool set up. Now, there were towels and people everywhere, but still a sense of calm.

Isaac was born at 6.27pm, and we were told that we needed to spend the night in hospital so that a neonatologist could check that none of Isaac's bones had been broken as a result of the shoulder dystocia. One of my biggest concerns was that I wasn't going to get any dinner! I had genuinely been looking forward to the prospect of a hearty meal after giving birth, but now that I had to go to hospital, I would only have access to cereal! So John made me a sandwich which I ate in the ambulance. One of my fondest memories in those first hours after giving birth is when the midwives at the hospital passed me my naked little babe to put inside my top to have some skin to skin time to help raise his temperature. He had been crying after being undressed, and the moment he was on my chest, he went completely calm, closed his eyes and went to sleep. Just beautiful. The following day it poured and poured with rain. I cherished the quiet of my own room in the hospital as I snuggled with my new babe. I loved that Isaac had been born on the only sunny day we had had for weeks. John collected us from hospital at 5pm and we drove home to introduce Isaac to his siblings and paternal grandparents. The following day, we celebrated Ruby's fifth birthday. What a beautiful week of birth and celebration we had.

First photo as a family of five